I'd like to go through these items...
1. These costs include wages, fuel, repairs, hauling, and supplies related to and necessary for drilling and preparing wells for the production of oil and gas. Other companies incurring similar types of costs must recover this cost over the life of the investment.
Not sure how this is any different than other businesses since I deducted wages, fuel, repairs, supplies and transportation costs as I incurred them immediately.
2. Tertiary, or enhanced oil recovery, methods increase the amount of oil that a company can extract from a well by an additional 5 percent to 15 percent according to some research. This tax expenditure subsidizes the costs of tertiary injectants—the fluids, gases, and other chemicals that are pumped into oil and gas reservoirs as part of this process.
Again if I'm spending money to increase the profitability of my business, I'm deducting the expenses when I pay for the supplies, etc.
3. I'll give you this one
4. This gives oil and gas companies a competitive edge over other types of energy companies.
????????????? Yeah, I guess ethanol and solar haven't received any subsidies.
5. I'm not real clear about this one but it smells a lot like a back door tariff on imported goods by encouraging the purchase of American products. I'd have to look at this one deeper.
6. allows companies to deduct the costs associated with searching for oil, recovering the costs over a two-year period.
This is a carbon copy of R&D expenditures for tech/pharma etc. except they can deduct R&D in one year rather than 2.
I'm not even an expert and these points are on the whole no different than any other business.
But then again I wouldn't expect Media Matters to try and point out those similarities. |
